Deep cracks emerged in the allied front that pulled off the partially successful Ramadi operation. Most forces stayed out of the fighting, Americans shut Shiite militias out of the city center, and the US-trained Sunni militias had their own agenda.

There are roughly two Shiites for every Sunni fighting in the Syrian civil war today, a total of 130,000 Shiites compared with no more than 50-60,000 Sunnis, including members of Al Qaeda and its affiliates.

Iraqi Al Qaeda (ISIS), advancing Saturday, Jan. 4, on Baghdad from captured areas of Sunni Falluja and Ramadi, also claimed to have carried out the bombing attack Thursday, Jan. 2, on Hizballah’s political headquarters in Beirut. debkafile: Al Qaeda in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon are clearly in mid-momentum of a drive to seize footholds across a wide swathe of the Middle East, spanning three Arab capitals - Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut - in the role of Sunni knife slicing through the Shiite axis of Iran, Syria and the Lebanese Hizballah.

Sunni and Shiite Soldiers of Allah are on the march against each other. They are preparing for a clash of arms in the embattled Syrian arena. A mobilization campaign is drawing foreign jihadists to fight Assad out of many corners of the Sunni world, including lands now ruled by Islamists, who too want a quiet life free of troublemakers.

Bashar Assad has stepped in directly to halt the covert war his Western and Arab foes are waging against his regime through Lebanon. debkafile’s military sources disclose he is now sending Lebanese army commanders direct orders for cutting arms, money, fighters and medical supplies to the rebels, especially in Homs. Last week, Lebanese Chief of Staff Gen. Jean Kahwagi was given a crude ultimatum: Take care of the Syrian rebels’ backers in Tripoli, or else the Syrian army will enter Lebanon and do the job.

Saudi rulers, to save the Syrian opposition from defeat at Bashar Assad’s hands, are reported by debkafile’s intelligence sources as taking a hand in turning al Qaeda Iraqi cells loose against him. Saudi agents used their pull with Iraqi Sunnis to persuade al Qaeda leaders that Assad and his Alawite regime were their most dangerous foe and their overthrow the first Sunni priority. Al Qaeda’s Pakistan headquarters broadcast the same call-up. Up 1,000 al Qaeda jihadis reported now in Syria.

By Friday night, Dec. 23, Western intelligence sources were attributing the twin suicide car attacks which claimed 53 lives and injured more than 100 outside the Syrian Security Directorate in Damascus earlier in the day to President Bashar Assad and his security chiefs. His motive? To keep the Arab League team, just arrived for an effort to start brokering peace in Syria, busy in Damascus instead of inspecting Homs where the bloody military crackdown continued during the day.